Thursday, September 01, 2016

U.S. Refused to Discuss Russian Peace Overtures on Syria

There has been much discussion about Syria lately and how the left should respond. I believe that while this debate is not new it has accelerated because of the presidential election and Hillary Clinton's determination to continute this war. Some "leftists" are finding it hard to break from the democrats. Hence the confusion and juvenile level of analysis.

At the end of my latest CPR News interview with Don Debar I pointed out the Russian's willingness to negotiate Assad's fate. In 2012 both president Vladimir Putin and his foreign secretary Sergei Lavrov publicly said they weren't wedded to Bashar al-Assad remaining as president of Syria. Their overtures were rejected publicly and privately and the carnage continued. It is important to keep this in mind the next time another denunciation of Putin makes the rounds.

In 2015 Finnish diplomat Martti Ahtisaari repeated what the Russians had already said three years earlier. His confirmation that these discussions took place was considered newsworthy. Yet Vaska Tumir pointed out in Off Guardian this "news" was a subterfuge for the corporate media. They acted as though they never knew what the Russians had already said to them.

I don't think that Russia or anyone else should decide Syria's fate but we must have our facts in order. The U.S./NATO, Saudi, Qatari, Turkish, Israeli torment of Syria might have been stopped. But the empire would settle for nothing less than the destruction of that country.

Margaret Kimberley

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